Regional Human–Wildlife Conflict Assessment – Northern Angola

In January, MWA travelled across Northern Angola - Cuanza Norte, Uíge, and Bengo - to assess growing Human–Wildlife Conflict between forest elephants and rural communities, with support from the Elephant Crisis Fund.

Across village meetings and field visits, communities consistently identified forest elephants as the primary conflict species. But the real drivers go deeper.

Logging roads are opening once-intact forests.

Agriculture is expanding into elephant movement corridors.

Banana and cassava farms are spreading into the same valleys and mountain bases where wildlife depends on water.

This year, severe drought is making things worse.

Cassava crops in higher elevations are failing, pushing farmers into lower areas where elephants move and feed.

The pressure on the landscape is intensifying.

The mission also revealed deeper structural challenges: rapid population growth, strong hunting pressure, and wildlife with almost no economic value locally. In some communities, pangolins sell for around USD 4, while foreign buyers can pay ten times more. In one forest stretch alone, the team recorded 14 bushmeat snares within 100 metres.

But the mission was not only about documenting problems.

MWA worked closely with local authorities, provincial governments, and INBAC - Angola’s equivalent of ANAC, while delivering training to Fundação Kissama’s Forest Guardians and NZAU project staff. Because addressing Human–Wildlife Conflict requires strong partnerships, shared knowledge, and coordinated action.

MWA also presented its Human–Wildlife Conflict prevention model, which combines community engagement, monitoring systems, and field-based mitigation strategies to support coexistence. MWA’s HWC Strategy

Next, MWA will finalise recommendations with Elephant Crisis Fund and Save the Elephants to guide potential pilot interventions in priority forest elephant landscapes.

Understanding the landscape is the first step to protecting both people and elephants.